1 down, 99 to go...
Well if there were ever to kick off this list, the EVERYTHING IS CHANGING AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT also titled The Emperor's Children by Claire Messaud is it. It was as if I were reading a very slow slasher novel. The killer is in the kitchen! Don't go in the kitchen! Except the killer is 9/11/2001 and the characters have to go into the kitchen. Because the kitchen is the future.
I wonder if this was on the list because many early 20-somethings do not have the same memories of 9/11 as those of us in our late 20s. They were as young as elementary school. I was a sophomore in high school when the planes hit the towers. I was sitting in Mr. Elder's health class. Or maybe it was driver's ed. I don't remember. Mr. Elder was teaching.
We often got to watch a few minutes of the Today show before CHS News Live!, our high school's announcements read by classmates on closed-circuit TV, began. Before CHSNL! took over, the North Tower was already smoking. We all watched the 2nd plane hit the South Tower, live. Then the announcements came on.
The TV was off by the time the plane hit the Pentagon. I didn't see the towers fall. Our principal came over the system and announced that given the events that morning, if teachers wanted to suspend classes and watch the news, they could do so. I'll never forget - Mr. Elder said that we had more important things to do than watch TV.
When we left class, there were people in the courtyards crying. I spent the rest of the day watching TV. Watching footage of the towers crumble. Watching images of the plane in the Pennsylvania field - the thwarted attack. No one was calling that quite yet. The smoking Pentagon. The false images of people in our "enemy" countries celebrating.
Everything changes. In a lot of ways, Mr. Elder was right. We had more important things to do than watch TV. I think that moment said a lot about him as a person, even though I was resentful of his inaction for a long time. How could he, how dare he, keep us from one of the most pivotal events of our lifetime? Because that's how life happens. Because that's how you fight terrorism. You keep going.
Back to Messaud...the main characters are all in search of more. It centers on a group of college friends now in early their 30s and the famous father of one of those friends. They aren't particularly like-able; Massaud really focuses on their flaws. In that way, they are real. Fame, relevance, recognition, wealth -- they are all looking for more of something. Messaud does a good job of showing that no one can really know what is next -- hence the slow slasher novel feel. The reader knows what is coming but the characters are oblivious.
Once the mores are met, there are just more mores. It never ends. That is what my 20s have felt like. There is a list that exists and I'm supposed to be checking things off it. Except I don't have the list. My list of mores are all internal expectations -- more vegetables, more yoga, pay more compliments, spend more responsibly. I'm not interested in fame, relevance, recognition, or wealth. Just kidding! Wealth would be great but I don't think of it as a necessity. But if you give a mouse a cookie...
So why is this a book every 20-something must read?
For one thing, it explores a time that we have few concrete memories of -- pre-9/11 and the events of that day. What was I doing in May 2001? I really have no clue. Learning to drive. Crushing on boys. The Emperor's Children also shows that more is unattainable - you're always going to want more mores. This is most clearly shown in the relationship between Danielle and Murray. Finally, it shows the changing nature of friendship. The way that other relationships become more important over time even as people remain friends. Everything is changing - even the way we define friendship.
Favorite quote: "To be your own person, to find your own style -- these were the quests of adolescence and young adulthood, pushed, in a youth-obsessed culture, well into middle age. She saw suddenly how strange it is that adults long to be young, when the young have not had time to become themselves and are therefore largely what the adults make of them, want them to be. What terrible pressure. What relentless falsehood." p203
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